New exhibit opens at Sedgwick County Zoo

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Stingray Cove, a new interactive attraction at the Sedgwick County Zoo, opens to the community on Friday. It will be open up everyday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. from April as a result of October.
In the show are two distinct types of equally stingrays and bamboo sharks. The majority of the stingrays are cownose rays, with only three southern stingrays. The bamboo shark species are the brown-banded bamboo shark and the white-noticed bamboo shark.
The price of the knowledge is $4 for customers, $5 for nonmembers and cost-free for youngsters two and beneath.
Upon coming into Stingray Cove, friends will be requested to rinse their palms and arms up to their elbows. Visitors can then use a flat palm to gently contact the rays and sharks on their backs.

Exhibit Supervisor Sean Mayall claims, “All it requires is you just to location your hand in the water. With a easy hand in the water, our animals are likely to come and investigate what is going on, and when they see this, they’re going to swim by, and you just arrive at suitable down, and you get to have an conversation with them by just touching them appropriate on their backs. It’s their favorite factor to do. They adore the interactions with humans, and any time they see this, and they know to just come on by and have a nice little conversation with you.”
According to Mayall, the stingrays’ barbs are eliminated. “At the zoo right here, we are likely to trim those people barbs back, so they are almost nothing to get worried about. It is just like clipping our fingernails,” explained Mayall.
For an additional $2, you can feed the stingrays.
“We feed them a combination of unique styles of fish, so you may possibly get anything at all from squid to shrimp to distinct styles of baitfish,” said Mayall. “They get about 7 various merchandise in their diet regime on a daily foundation.”
The habitat at the zoo mimics the species’ normal habitat.
“We hold this h2o in right here heated in the mid-70s all the time throughout the calendar year. It’s what temperature they choose, so we try to keep that at all periods,” Mayall reported. “We hold the salt share in this h2o equivalent to what you’d find out in the ocean.”
Powering the scenes of the show is a complicated program to retain the h2o habitable for the animals.
“We have a 17,000-gallon habitat, and every single fifty percent an hour, this h2o, every single gallon of this, will run via a filtration program to be flawlessly cleanse, pull out anything at all, any of the waste that may possibly be in it, and make certain that this h2o is nutritious and natural for these animals,” mentioned Mayall.
For additional information on Stingray Cove, take a look at the Sedgwick County Zoo’s site.